William Sitwell, who has also been a judge on Masterchef, swiftly apologised when the comments were first made public.
Photograph: John Alex Maguire/Rex/Shutterstock

The editor of Waitrose Food magazine has left the publication after mocking vegans, suggesting the publication of a piece exposing their “hypocrisy” and joking that they should be force-fed meat.

William Sitwell made the comments in an email to a freelance journalist and immediately apologised, but on Wednesday the supermarket said he would be stepping down with immediate effect.

Selene Nelson, who is a vegan, had pitched Sitwell a “plant-based meal series” looking at meat-free dishes.

In comments first reported by BuzzFeed News, Sitwell replied: “Hi Selene. Thanks for this. How about a series on killing vegans, one by one. Ways to trap them? How to interrogate them properly? Expose their hypocrisy? Force-feed them meat? Make them eat steak and drink red wine?”

In a follow-up email, he added: “I like the idea of a column called The Honest Vegan; a millennial’s diary of earnest endeavour and bacon sandwiches ... ”

Sitwell, who has also been a judge on Masterchef, swiftly apologised when the comments were made public this week, but it was not enough to save his job.

The decision was made in conjunction with John Brown Media, the independent production agency that produces Waitrose Food magazine, one of the UK’s highest-circulation publications.

The supermarket has made a big push into vegan food this year and announced a new range of vegan products for its stores earlier this month, including vegan Christmas meals.

In addition to his work for Waitrose, Sitwell is a commentator on food issues, hosts food podcasts and edits cookbooks.

Sitwell used a post on Instagram to pay tribute to the rest of the magazine team and said he was especially proud of publishing a special edition of vegetarian recipes last year, for which the publication “refused advertising from those proffering meat-based products”.

He said he had enjoyed working on Waitrose Food for the last two decades and reiterated his “apology to any food and life-loving vegan who was genuinely offended by remarks written by me as an ill-judged joke in a private email and now widely reported”.

A Waitrose spokesman said: “In the light of William’s recent email remarks, we’ve told John Brown Media that we believe this is the right and proper move. We will be working with them to appoint a new editor for the magazine. We have had a relationship with William for almost 20 years and are grateful for his contribution to our business over that time.”

• This article was amended on 5 November 2018 to make clear that William Sitwell is a relation, not a descendant, of the writers Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell.